Student in Police net for tampering online Entrance Option

Tvm: A 22 year old BDS Student has been arrested by the Cyber Police today for tampering with the online Engineering option after the Common Entrance Examination in 2008. Geetu, who had ranked 1757 in the 2008 Common Entrance Examination, had complained to the DGP that she got admission in the Government Engineering College at Kozhikode even though she did not opt for the same.

Based on Geetu’s complaint, a case (No. 391/2008) was registered under section 420 IPC read with Sec. 66 of IT Act 2000 at the Thambanoor Police Station in Thiruvananthapuram and the investigation was later transferred to the Cyber Police Station. Geetu is a resident of Vellalipalli Ramapuram in Kottayam District.

The investigating team at the Cyber Police Station found that the option for the Engineering College was changed from a computer in the house of Babu Kuriakose, a resident of Charupara in Idukki District. The system was seized and sent to the Forensic Sciences Lab for further investigation where it was found that the option was tampered by Rinu, Babu’s daughter.

As per the provisions of the IT Act, Rinu and her father Banu were arrested today and later released on bail. J Sukumara Pillai, DySP of the Cyber Police Station lead the investigating team with Ajit Mohan, CI and Surendran Nair, ASI of the Cyber Police Station.

Update May 27, 2010

According to the information available with Kerala IT News, Geetu’s father Thomas, who knows Babu Kuriakose, had accessed the Common Entrance Examination website from Babu’s residence to check for the Engineering colleges and course options available for his daughter while on a visit to Idukki. He won’t have logged out properly and Babu’s daughter Rinu might have inadvertently accessed the options page resulting in Geetu getting Civil while she wanted CS or Electronics in a better college. Rinu was already a BDS student and the outcome of this so called ‘tampering’ won’t have affected her in any way.

The Police sources said that the case might be settled with a compromise in the court as there was not malicious intent in Rinu’s action. Meanwhile, Geetu is planning to change her college and course, armed with a court order.